Douglas Frith is stepping down as Hollywood’s point man in Canada after 12 years, and will be replaced as acting executive director of the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association by Wendy Noss.

Frith will still keep his hand in government relations, however, as he represents the major studios on Parliament Hill and in the provinces as part of his newly formed consultancy.

But Noss, a veteran intellectual property lawyer who joined the CMPDA in 2006 as general counsel, will now assume the thorny job of lobbying for copyright reforms and protections in Canada on behalf of the major Hollywood studios.

‘Wendy is a copyright lawyer. I’m not. This is a perfect time for me to get on with another career,’ Frith, a career politico-turned-lobbyist, tells Playback Daily.

Among Frith’s accomplishments were the swift passage of anti-camcording legislation in 2007, and he pushed for a recent round of tax-credit hikes in Ontario and Quebec to ease the impact of the surging Canadian dollar on Hollywood shoots.

But the continuing failure of the Canadian government to introduce new legislation to reduce copyright infringements, and to bring Canada in line with the 1997 World Intellectual Property Organization Internet treaties, will now become preoccupations for Noss.

‘There was a commitment in the throne speech made by the prime minister to improve the protection of culture and intellectual property rights in Canada, including copyright reform,’ says Noss, who will now call on the Conservatives to fulfill that pledge.

Before joining the CMPDA, Noss practiced law with Sim Hughes and Bennett Jones in Toronto. Before that, she served as counsel and director of government affairs for the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency

The CMPDA is an affiliate of the Motion Picture Association of America, with members including Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios and Warner Bros. Entertainment.